


Only One

by 60sec400



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Second Chances, The Force, Time Travel, anakin skywalker learned a lot, is it reincarnation if it's your past self, no editing we die like clones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25430524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/60sec400/pseuds/60sec400
Summary: Anakin Skywalker is granted the gift of returning to the past after his death.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 13
Kudos: 120





	Only One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Enjoy this fic and let me know what you think! Would love to hear your thoughts.

When Anakin died and came into the Force in the light once again, he expected to be greeted by his Master. To be pulled forward and… well, he did not know the words that would be exchanged. But Anakin could finally acknowledge and revel in the love his Master had, always, had for him. That he’d been blind to see. That he’d thought was false. 

So when he came into the Force in the light once again and was stood in a stark white brightness of nothing, an aging body forgotten behind him in life, Anakin was confused. He had no body that he could find, only a consciousness that had spent far too long being shredded by empty dark and the vague feeling of phantom limbs that didn’t appear to exist here either. 

The Force asked him if he wanted to go back. 

Go back? Where?

Go back. To fix it.

Anakin could not think through what that would mean. His breath, even though it was not needed, stopped short in his throat and died there. If he’d had knees, he’d have fallen to them. Go back? 

His first thought was Padmé, then Luke, then Leia and the Ahsoka and Rex and the 501st who hadn’t deserved to be done to them, none of the Clones, and then to Obi-Wan, his master, who he’d murdered. Then the Jedi, who hadn’t deserved their genocide. Then Luke and Ahsoka and Padmé and maybe a daughter he would get to know. Then Obi-Wan. Then Ahsoka. 

Go back, he repeated, slightly awed. 

There will be a sacrifice, the Force asked. Only one. 

But what could possibly be worse? Anakin wanted to ask. He could… he’d had everything. He’d been so close. He’d been a man so terrified of his own actions, actions that had rightfully been wrong and  _ awful _ , that he had instead doubled down on them, convinced himself he was right and look what it had gotten him? Nothing. He’d gotten nothing. Only a loneliness he’d always convinced himself he’d had. Only, come to find out, to his regret, he’d never really been  _ alone.  _

And oh hadn’t he discovered the difference between being alone and loneliness? 

And what could be worse? He asked. 

Nothing, he answered himself.  _ He could change it.  _

He told the Force he’d do it. 

The light, a physical and permeating warmth, swelled up around him and swallowed his consciousness into itself. He was pulled into a great well, endless and filled with light that scattered into stars and stretched into black holes and pulled it with him because he was in the light now after he’d been gone for long, lost in nothing and alone in a crowded room. The light pulled him down and down and down and then back, wretching his nothing-body into a pinhole of space that was infinitely small and infinitely large and then it shoved him into a coolness. 

He was in a fog until he’d woken up, age four, watching Shmi Skywalker pitter around the room of their hut. He wandered around Tatooine and, well, it really allowed Anakin to finally practice patience. 

He could wait five years, he supposed, preparing to leave. He thought a lot in that five years. About himself and the Jedi and his time as a Sith. He thought about his Master and all he’d taught him, and the lessons that Anakin had imparted on his own Padawan, on Ahsoka, and he took them and thought about them hard. He did not just remember them. He accepted them. Maybe in a way he hadn't ever before, and, maybe, in a way he had but hadn’t taken with him. 

The Force helped. He could sense it, pull at it, reach for it and think of the light he’d found after death. The Force. It’d been there. And now, it was here too. Guiding him. The Living Force that Qui-Gon had followed embraced him. And with it, the Cosmic Force that had been Obi-Wan’s guiding starlight reached for him too. 

When the time finally came for him to go, he’d already accepted that he would have to leave his mother. It would not be right to tear her from Lars. Only, this time, Anakin would listen to his dreams and save her. He’d accepted this sacrifice, of leaving. The Force had warned him and leaving her had been so hard but he’d had five years to accept it so he’d let her go. 

He got to ask Padmé if she was an angel again. Her laugh lit up the light in Anakin’s soul and he was struck by how much he’d missed her. Oh, he’d thought, she hadn’t deserved her fate. 

None of them did. 

Maybe he had. 

But he was getting a second chance and who was he to complain? He happily dragged her and his Grandmaster back to his home, the warning of the sandstorm ringing true. 

When he finally got to the ship after narrowly escaping Maul, who was less and yet somehow more terrifying (Anakin’s thoughts flew to Satine Kryze, and her undeserving death) than before, he was introduced once again to his Master.

Obi-Wan! His heart soared, and he couldn’t help but follow the Padawan around the ship. Obi-Wan seemed indifferent to him, and his words shared with Qui-Gon in the life before about Anakin being dangerous echoed in his mind. Anakin had killed him. Obi-Wan had raised and loved him and Anakin turned his back on everything he’d ever been taught and then murdered the man who Anakin had thought of as a father. 

Father. Brother. Master. 

But Obi-Wan was so good with children, even though Anakin was both simultaneously awed and annoyed by his situation and being nine, and followed behind his Master. Qui-Gon Jinn was still a faraway god to him, who seemed so nice and who had freed him again and who was going to take Anakin to be a Jedi again so he could save all of them. And he had his Master back! Obi-Wan was here, alive, and this time Anakin would not betray him. He would not die by Anakin’s hand. 

When he was placed in front of the Council, his thoughts inadvertently turned to his mother. Too afraid, they said. They’d been right the first time; Anakin had never let that go. Always second guessing. Always fearing. He wanted to go to Naboo; to go he had to get rejected. It hurt only a little less. Only because Anakin could handle it better, now. 

He was taken to Naboo again, too. Good, he’d thought. 

Anakin was pulled through the streets by his Master and Grandmaster and the Naboo. 

The Force sang sweetly into his ear. 

He was commanded to stay in the cockpit, even after he’d warned his Master and Grandmaster that he had, to quote Obi-Wan, a bad feeling. They’d both looked at each other. After this, Anakin would have a Grandmaster. Ahsoka would have her great-great-Grandmaster. And all would be well. 

Anakin would be  _ better.  _ Right before he was relegated to the cockpit of the ship that he most definitely would not leave, as the Force sang, he tugged on Obi-Wan’s tunic and pulled him down to whisper in his ear. 

Be safe, he’d said, and then added in his mind,  _ Master. _

Obi-Wan gave him one last curious look and rested his hand on Anakin’s shoulder and how much had Anakin missed that touch! He leaned into it like a child does and soaked in his Masters Force presence. Obi-Wan reassured him, gave him kind words, and then awkwardly patted Anakin’s shoulder again before following his Master to face Maul. 

Anakin’s warning rang true in both their minds. 

When he returns to the hanger, smiley eyed and grinning, he rejoices and runs toward where he knows Obi-Wan had returned the last time, where Qui-Gon will now appear too. But as footsteps echo up the chamber, Anakin is greeted by a bone-weary master carrying a still Padawan. 

No. 

Anakin steps back. 

He takes another step, horrified. 

Obi-Wan’s eyes are not yet closed and they stare, unblinkingly and set forever, in some far off distance behind Anakin. Qui-Gon is clutching the body close to his chest, Obi-Wan’s arm flopped down and hung limp there. The man barely makes it into the room before he drops to his knees and holds Obi-Wan’s head to his chest, weaving his hands through short auburn hair. 

Anakin can only stare, horrified. No, no, no, nononononono. 

A sacrifice, the Force whispered to him. 

You agreed to a sacrifice. 

He’d thought it’d been his mother! He’d thought letting go of his mother for real, of accepting his place, of actually living by the Jedi had… had been his sacrifice. 

Obi-Wan in the last life had died by his hand. And now, it seemed, his fate inexplicably tied to Anakin Skywalker, he’d died for him here too. But it was for a choice that had been made for him, for a boy he did not know, this time, that he did not yet love. 

Anakin took a step forward. His Master. Oh, his Master. 

Qui-Gon sobbed into Obi-Wan’s hair. Grey eyes watched nothing. The man clutched the cream robes. 

You could only have one, the Force told Anakin. That, it said, was the deal. 

And what could possibly be worse, Anakin had asked himself. Nothing, he’d told himself. Nothing. 

Only this. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I can be reached at tumblr to yell about Star Wars. My username is 60sec400, same as here! (And same icon).


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